Patience in Prospect Development
Dear Diary,
From August 28 to August 31, 2023, I attended the Apra (Association of Prospect Researchers for Advancement) annual conference that was hosted this year in Indianapolis, Indiana. As always, it was a wonderful and communal event with an opening reception, a keynote speaker, breakfasts, sessions, lunches, vendor presentations, happy hours, sightseeing, networking, and more.
I took plenty of notes and attended sessions focused on portfolio management because, at this stage in my career, I wanted to gather more perspectives and lessons in this area.
On my drive home from the conference, I realized a common thread that connected everyone in my sessions, all the stories I heard, and all of the lessons I wrote down - patience - you have to have a level of patience in prospect development to do the work, to be a fundraising partner, to try and strive for results continuously, and to envision philanthropic opportunities and growth.
When you join the field, there’s a trial-and-error period and a learning tour that you experience as you're soaking up an extraordinary amount of information. There is a level of patience you cultivate to process information and skill-up, sometimes even manage-up. When tenured, there is a new form of patience you start to exhibit as you’re trying to learn how to navigate your authority and voice. During some sessions, I heard the complaints of expectations - who could and could not be an enforcer; who could and could not counsel; what needed to be managed and by whom; and what should and should not be prioritized.
Patience (noun) - the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset.
I attended several sessions focused on portfolio transformation - I heard the through-line of patience. Patience with frontline fundraisers, encouraging changes and portfolio movement, and encouraging well-balanced and high-quality portfolios. There were many takeaways from the ideal target range for portfolios to the process of creating the target key performance indicators for CRM trainings, managing the data extraction and data management/analysis. Remember: You have to have a level of patience in prospect development because this can be really frustrating work.
I attended a session that incorporated for-profit project management concepts and systems. I quickly learned that implementing such tools would require structured projects with little room for ambiguity. So, if you worked within an organization that upheld a culture open to ambiguity, this would not be applicable.
I attended a session on diversifying prospect pipelines, the speaker underscored the need to know the business purpose and intended use for the collection and maintenance of identity-related data. Many asked unanswerable questions about their efforts to diversify prospect pipelines - I realized that there was an issue with values alignment - an issue “above pay grades.”
We are part of a patient community that gathers to ask questions, learn from one another, and, most importantly, commiserate in the unanswered questions, the ironies, and sarcasm. We laugh and learn through it all.
Patience can be costly, exhausting, and rewarding - regardless of intended and unintended outcomes. During my time at the conference, I was with a community of experts in their own right, with flare and ingenuity. I saw their genius, and they shared their insights.
It is hard to patiently wait for the right time to create a new system or change a long-standing process, but we have to get off the ferris wheel of standard at some time and push the limits.
Until next time, October 15th!
Art Credit: LeNia Stitt
